


Sea Stories

by RobberBaroness



Category: Treasure Island & Related Fandoms, Treasure Island - Lavery
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24277393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: The girl is always asking questions about Flint.  They're not stories for her ears.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Sea Stories

The girl is always asking questions, whenever she thinks he’s liable to answer them with words and not a gesture of his sword. She knows how easily he shifts, and he can’t blame her for being frightened. It would be easier if she was more frightened and left him alone, but a man can’t live forever with no kind word from another living soul, so when Bones is in a fair mood he’ll grant her an answer or two.

And she knows he’s a pirate, not that he’s tried very hard to hide it. He’s a paying guest, when his head is clear enough to remember his bills, and she’s not about to go summon the king’s men to pull the whole inn apart in return for a paltry reward. He’s never deliberately told her as much, but he can hardly remember what he’s done in the mornings after a roaring night of drinking, and now the name Flint is always on her lips. She’s anxious to bring it up, he can tell, but not anxious enough to let the matter drop.

A fine pirate Billy Bones is now, unable to scare a girl.

It won’t kill him to answer a question or two if it’ll shut her up. If she were a boy, perhaps he’d worry about being an inspiration, but it isn’t as if she can run off and join the navy in search of adventure. And since when did he ever care about driving anyone to a bad end, anyway?

_ “How did you meet Flint?” _

_ “Took me from a navy ship. Must’ve been ten, twenty years ago.” _

‘Took’ is a strong word, but it makes him sound better. ‘Recruited’ would have been more accurate. Beatings and cheap pay and scarce food had filled Bones with contempt for the forces of the crown, and when Flint offered the men of the  _ Elizabeth _ the chance to jump ship or die, he hadn’t even needed the threat to accept. And in some ways, his hopes were fulfilled. The pay was better. The food was better. There were no regular beatings.

What there was instead was periodic, unpredictable terror. He’d gone from being ruled by brutes to being ruled by a madman. Months at a time would go by with no reprisals from the captain, then a crewman would commit an insignificant error and Flint would personally lash him to death. Sometimes Bones thought Flint was playing a long game, keeping them all in suspense so they’d never feel safe enough to rise against them. Sometimes he simply thought the man was genuinely crazed.

_ “Did you know him well?” _

_ “Thought I did. I was a fool.” _

As he rose in rank, Bones had started to fancy himself too important for Flint to kill. Sometimes he’d even thought of himself as second in command. In reality, both of those honors belonged only to Silver, the one-legged quartermaster who had been with Flint since he’d been a cabin boy. It wasn’t so much that Flint trusted him (mad he may have been, but not an idiot) as that he thought they were of the same mind. And Silver encouraged this, not seeming to bow and scrape but somehow always knowing the right word that would cool the captain’s temper.

Bones often wondered what the history was between the two. Sometimes when Flint’s gaze was elsewhere, Bones saw Silver looking at the captain with hatred in his eyes, the kind of hatred that could only accrue over a man’s entire lifetime.

_ “Could you tell me of any of your adventures?” _

_ “They’re nothing fit for a girl’s ears.” _

It was true that he saw more treasure under Flint’s command than he’d ever dreamed of, though none of it ever seemed to stick to him. Flint loved pretty things, be they goods or people. The seizure of either was never far from his mind.

Bones hadn’t complained. Why should he? After a hard life at sea, everything seemed owed to them. Damn the king, damn the empire, damn the world, and damn any town or ship within their path. He’d never thought that some day he would be the one cowering in a port town dreading the arrival of pirates. With any luck, he’d be dead from drink before the day came when he saw them.

_ “What happened to the men who went ashore with him, singing?” _

_ “Only Flint knows that, and his tongue moves no more.” _

When they returned from the island, Flint and Silver claimed there had been a mutiny. The men they’d gone ashore with had tried to overthrow them and seize the treasure for themselves, Silver said. They’d been swiftly executed for their crime, their bodies left to guard the treasure they had tried to steal.

It had been a lie. Not that Bones put mutiny past his friends, but if they had planned such a thing, they would have told him. He would have been part of it. The giant in particular would have made sure to have him at hand, as the two always found best when on an adventure. And Ben Gunn, the little cabin boy? The child they’d taken aboard not for his ability to fight but for his ability to read, who looked up to Silver as if he were his own father? That boy, a mutineer? Never.

He should have called Flint out at that moment. The crew outnumbered him- they could have staged a genuine mutiny. But he betrayed the memory of his comrades by staying silent and pretending to believe the lie.

_ “How did Flint die?” _

_ “He smelled rebellion in the air and hid out in Savannah. Wasn’t far enough. The quartermaster found him and stabbed him in his bed.” _

Bones had been with Flint when he and a few others put into port in Savannah, abandoning the rest of the Walrus crew to their worthless ship. Bones had planned to desert at the first opportunity, and he should have stuck to that plan instead of accompanying Flint to his house there. He should never have let Flint take him into his trust. He should never have taken the paper Flint thrust into his hands. He should have been warned by the nasty humor in the captain’s eye.

When Bones took a room an inn for the night and looked at what he’d been given, he knew he’d had a curse passed to him. Flint had given him the damn map to the damn treasure, all in a bid to save his own life from Silver’s when the quartermaster caught up to them. A fine gift, when Bones could hardly go there by himself, nor trust his former crewmates not to kill him for it! Or to kill him simply for having seen it, if he handed it over of his own free will. He couldn’t even burn it, for the thought of the riches it could lead to taunted him day and night, no matter that he’d likely never reach them.

Of course Flint had looked as if he wanted to laugh when he gave Bones the map. It was his greatest joke.

_ “And the one-legged man-” _

_ “Enough! Leave me be, or I’ll give you a blow you won’t forget!” _

The questions were foolish, the stories a fool’s prize. What did the girl want with nightmares of Flint? He’d gladly give her his share to keep, if he could. Bones finishes his bottle as the girl scurries away, unaddressed curiosity still in her eyes. 

The thought crosses his mind to find another hideout, further inland, farther from the reach of the  _ Walrus _ crew, with no young girls to be slaughtered there should they find it after all. The though passes. It’s hardly the time to care now, after all these years. Here’s a drink to the memory of Flint, and all the concern for the world the captain taught him.


End file.
